Buzzing with success: Josephine Sim wins ecobrick challenge

Creativity, sustainability and engineering excellence came together in an impressive achievement for Year 13 Macleans College student Josephine Sim (Mansfield House).

Earlier this year, youth engagement platform Buzzly, the Women in Engineering Network and Engineering for Sustainable Development hosted the Buzzly Ecobrick Challenge. The competition invited students to design a bee sanctuary for the University of Auckland’s community garden - using only ecobricks, which are plastic bottles tightly packed with clean, recycled plastic waste.

Josephine’s thoughtful, creative and highly practical design impressed the judges, winning her the senior category. Her design will soon be built as a functioning bee sanctuary.

To celebrate her success, Ashleigh Fox from the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Engineering and Design visited Macleans College to present the school with a brand-new 3D printer.